I stood at the front of the room, with my hands shaking and feeling as though I could pass out at any moment. Despite this, I was ready. This was something I needed to do, and for the first time, I felt confident enough to do it.

"I'm sorry," I told everyone as they stared at me. "I've never shared my writing like this before. Forgive me as I shake like a leaf up here."

I received chuckles, and mumbled, "You got this" words of encouragement. With shaking hands, and a breath that was anything but steady, I began to speak.

The words didn't come easy, despite the fact that they were my own. I had read these same words over a multitude of times, but they seemed different somehow. You'll be happy to know that I didn't start crying until the third line.

All bets were off after that. By then, I was shaking so much and talking so fast that I wasn't even sure I could be understood. I kept going, though, because it was after the third line, as the words, "I am not his anymore," fell from my lips like both a statement of fact and a sad realization, that I saw you standing there.

Of course, you weren't really there. But it was comforting, almost, to act like you were standing in the back of the room, with your hands in your pockets, wearing a flannel, watching me. It was comforting to talk to you, to say those words to you, and not the eyes that stared at me in amazement as I spoke. I looked at you as I talked. At one point, there was so much emotion that I felt like I was going to start shouting my poem - at you, at the audience, at anyone who would listen.

When I finished, I took a breath, looked up, and your image had disappeared. You were gone. I walked back to my seat with applause ringing in my ears. I had done it. I really, truly had faced my fear, stood up there, and read. But all I cared about in those moments was that I had done everything you hoped I would. You weren't even there to see it. Nevertheless, I had done it.

It was you, or the you that was a figment of my overactive imagination, that got me through that reading. You of all people know it is not like me to stand in front of a crowd, to put myself out there like that, and yet I did it. Because of you. Because, for once, I saw myself the way you always did, and the way you always hoped I would: as a girl who could take on anything.

I drove home that night with your words playing in my mind like an overplayed pop song: "I hope one day you see yourself the way I see you... I hope one day you are confident in yourself... I hope one day you realize how great you are without having to be told..."

"I did it," I said aloud. If I'm being honest, I was talking to you.

I was terrified. The experience was liberating, exhilarating, and anxiety-inducing all at once. If I could say anything to you, I would say thank you. Thank you for having confidence in me, for believing in me, for loving me so much that I had no choice but to take that love and turn in into self-love.

I couldn't have done it without you.